Hollywood screen biographies often cause a lot of complaints, especially among certain audiences that value authenticity among everything else. Such noble ideal is more likely to be reached in documentaries. Yet, even this medium seems unsuitable when the general idea is to view someone’s life from the very perspective of such person. The task is even more difficult when such person is dead. Thankfully, Listen to Me Marlon, 2015 documentary about Marlon Brando, overcame such obstacle.

British filmmaker Stevan Riley achieved this mostly thanks to Brando himself. Great actor apparently spent a lot of time and energy expressing his most intimate thoughts to a tape recorder. Thus he created a treasure trove of material which could be edited into feature-length biographical documentary and serve as its narration. Riley has collected some of those monologues and tried to create something that would look as Brando’s posthumous self-portrait. Actor’s words are accompanied by the images of the very same tapes and the his home when they were supposedly made, as well as archival footage of his best known films, television interviews, other documentaries and his own home films.

Riley tried very hard to give some structure to the film and he mostly succeeded in doing so. The flawless editing tries to give clear and linear narrative, and the audience through Brando’s comments and images smoothly goes through various clearly identifiable points of his life and career – his unhappy and traumatic childhood in Omaha, arrival in New York and beginning of acting careers, triumph as Stan Kowalski both on stage and on screen, 1950s successes culminating with Oscar for On the Waterfront, 1960s career slump, civil rights activism, spectacular and triumphant comeback with The Godfather and The Last Tango in Paris, decline in the latter part of 1970s, problems with weight and family tragedies. Through the film the audience might hear Brando’s thoughts about his life, Tahiti and nature of acting. The film also includes some of the more salacious materials, like the conversation between the actor and his anonymous lady friend.

Yet, despite all such great effort and occasional moments that could be fascinating, Listen to Me Marlon is hardly a classic. The main problem is incoherence of the source material, apparently made through the decades during which Brando’s general mood and views had shifted. Without information when Brando made such recordings and in which context, the audience is left with the task to make something coherent out of them. In many cases, some previous knowledge of Brando and his work is required – for all those who don’t know any Brando’s film other than The Godfather or Apocalypse Now, this film will be mostly meaningless. Yet, those who appreciate Brando will probably appreciate this rare opportunity to hear his voice saying something new.